Every year, La Salle University gives any graduating senior the opportunity to be the featured speaker at that year’s commencement ceremony.

All a student has to do is submit a 5-8 minute speech, which is then considered by a committee of faculty members, staff and students.

Softball player Emily Moran saw the mass email and decided to give it a shot.

“I figured, ‘Why not, I have nothing to lose,’” Moran said.

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It was the start of an incredible journey that will have the Archbishop Prendergast graduate and All-Delco softball player on the dais Sunday to give the commencement speech during the graduation ceremony at McCarthy Stadium.

Moran figured the odds were against her. Even though she will receive her degree in communications, she has little experience in creative writing, so putting together a speech on what La Salle has meant to her that would have enough impact to be seriously considered as the commencement address was difficult.

“I use Facebook as a platform for everything I write,” Moran said. “I put things up there and see what kind of reaction I get. But for this, I knew I had to be more structured and that was hard. It took me a while to get the first paragraph out. Overall, it took me about five hours to write.”

Moran had plenty of competition. She was one of 18 seniors to submit a speech and one of seven finalists chosen to read that speech to the selection committee.

“I was just happy to be a finalist,” said Moran, who started 142 of the 154 games she played in her four-year career at La Salle.

Moran’s theme is one near and dear to her heart. She thinks of La Salle’s small, tight-knit community as a family and her home, a word she uses five times in the speech.

“I knew it would be risky,” she said. “It can be a cheesy cliché, but I tried to spin it a different way. I didn’t want to use I or me. I talked about how we come here as individuals and eventually become a family.

“A family gathers at the dinner table. Well, we gather at tables in the food court, in class and at social events on campus. The athletes go to each other’s games for support. I also wrote how the professors are like our parents. They teach us values and morals that we’ll take with us for the rest of our lives.”

“Another point I make is how much fun we had during the basketball team’s run to the Sweet 16 (in 2013) and how we were here for the 150th anniversary of the university. To me, La Salle is our home and we’re one big family.”

The selection committee liked Moran’s speech enough to bring her and six other seniors in for a final presentation April 17. As fate would have it, the softball team had a game that day, which made Moran even more nervous. She hoped to go first and then go to the game, but the order was chosen by a lottery system.

“We picked out of a hat,” Moran said.

Naturally, she picked No. 7.

“I was freaking out,” Moran said. “I didn’t want to sit there and wait. I wanted to get done and get to my game. Luckily, one of the other finalists let me go first.”

Moran went from the theater to the softball field on the west side of campus and helped the Explorers beat Massachusetts for the first time in program history. She went 1-for-3, with three putouts and two assists in the 3-0 win over the Minutemen. Moran helped turn an inning-ending double play in the top of the third to keep the game scoreless. Pitcher Alicia Aughton won it with a three-run, walk-off homer with one out in the bottom of the seventh inning.

“(Allen) came over and told me that the committee picked my speech and I starting crying,” Moran said. “My mom, who goes to all of our games, had no idea what was going on until I told her that I was picked to give the speech at graduation.”

On the eve of graduation, Moran is still trying to wrap her head around the idea that she is La Salle’s 2014 commencement speaker.

“I’m floored by it,” Moran said. “It’s an unbelievable honor and I am just so humbled that the committee chose my speech out of all the ones that were submitted.”